This post was written by Taylor Brooks, a librarian in the Library’s Researcher Experience Section.
On October 30, 2024, the Science and Business Reading Room hosted a conversation with Dr. Naa Oyo A Kwate, author of White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation. The conversation illuminated the history of Black communities’ complicated relationship with the fast-food industry. For those that missed the event, the recording is now available online.
In this talk, Dr. Kwate detailed her use of the Library of Congress collections, including some that are highlighted in the Library’s African Americans in Business and Entrepreneurship research guide. At the event, she discussed the legal battles around racial segregation in fast food chains and how that was one battleground in the fight for civil rights, the shifts in the 1980s and 1990s around Black attitudes toward fast food, and the emergence of Black franchisees of popular chains that we know today.
Watch the full event recording below.
Find more resources on African American enterprise through the Business section research guides and blog posts.
This conversation is a part of the Library’s Made at the Library series, a series of events that highlight works inspired by and emerging from research at the Library of Congress.
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